Democratic Fund-raiser Visited White House Often

Campaign 1996

John Huang, Under Fire For Questionable Fund-raising, Made Frequent And At Times Lengthy Visits.

October 31, 1996|By New York Times

WASHINGTON — John Huang, the senior Democratic finance official at the center of questions about the party's fund-raising activities, was a frequent guest at the White House even as he was raising millions of dollars for the 1996 election, according to government records.

The records, which Clinton aides have known about for days but have repeatedly declined to make available to reporters who have asked about them, show that Huang paid about 65 such visits in the first nine months of this year.

They provide evidence that he worked more closely with White House officials than has been generally known.

The federal law that tries to protect against conflict of interest requires the Democratic National Committee, for which he is a vice chairman of the financing unit, to operate at arm's length from the White House.

The records, shown to The New York Times by a government official critical of the Clinton administration, show how many times Huang entered and exited the White House compound, but not with whom he met or why.

They show that he was often at the White House for two or three hours at a stretch, sometimes more than once on the same day and occasionally until late at night.

On Feb. 9, he was there four times. His most frequent visits occurred in February, when he made 21, and in August, when he made 10. His last recorded visit was on Oct. 3, for about two hours, a few days after an article in the Los Angeles Times had described his solicitation of an unlawful $250,000 contribution from a South Korean company.

White House officials have said they have records showing who approved Huang's White House visits. But they would not make those records available, saying they are still being compiled.

In recent days, spokesmen from the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton-Gore campaign and the White House have tried to avoid talking about Huang, referring most questions to Huang's lawyer, who has avoided comment.

Huang, now 51, was once the senior American executive for the Riadys, a prominent Indonesian family with ties to Bill Clinton. When Huang headed the Lippo Bank in California, one of the family's main American interests, he established himself as a Democratic fund-raiser among Asian-Americans.

In 1994, he was appointed to a trade position at the Commerce Department. Members of the Riady family have told associates that they were responsible for that appointment, in return for their support for Clinton's campaigns.

In October 1994, a few months after arriving at the Commerce Department, Huang received a formal security clearance that enabled him to have access to top-secret documents. On Wednesday the Republican staff of the House International Relations Committee raised concerns about the adequacy of the security check.

Late last year Huang left the Commerce Department to join the Democratic National Committee. He was suspended from his duties two weeks ago, after reports of questionable fund-raising.

While it was already known that Huang had been to the White House occasionally as a trade official at the Commerce Department, the disclosure on Wednesday that he was a frequent visitor while working as Democratic fund-raiser raised new questions to some Republicans and finance experts, who noted the limitations in law on the activities of campaign and party officials at the Executive Mansion.

''If he's at a scheduling meeting to get the president to go to Los Angeles or something like that, that would be OK,'' said C. Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel to President George Bush. ''But if he's conveying messages between contributors and White House officials, that could be a real problem.''

Herbert Alexander, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, said it would be unlawful for Huang to have exchanged any commitments between contributors and White House officials.

''I'd want to know whether there were policy matters discussed and what were the political strategy issues that were discussed,'' said Alexander, the director of the Citizens Research Foundation, a nonpartisan group that studies campaign finance.

It is for several reasons that federal election laws limit the kinds of political activities that can be undertaken at the White House. Campaign officials are not supposed to be involved in any issue of governance, just as most government officials are not permitted to be active in political campaigns while they are performing their official functions.

For instance, no fund-raising may be done at the White House, and campaign officials are not supposed to become involved in any matters such as executive orders or regulations.

In addition, the Democratic National Committee is not permitted to coordinate its spending with the Clinton-Gore campaign because such coordination would evade spending and fund-raising limitations imposed on a candidate as a condition of receiving taxpayer money to help finance the campaign.